PLC In 1985, a joint anniversary will be cel-

ebrated: the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM) will be one year old, while its young ‘godmother’, the European Marketing Academy (EMAC) will be ten. Is this mere coincidence? Certainly not for those who are familiar with the Academy’s life cycle.

The introductory period of EMAC’s PLC ’ ran from 1972 to 1974. During that stage, annual ‘Workshops in Marketing’, held under the aegis of the European Institute for Ad- vanced Studies in Management (EIASM), led to the creation of communication networks among European marketing scholars.

April 2nd, 1975, the date when the European Academy for Advanced Research in Marketing (EAARM) was officially estab- lished, can be considered the starting point of the Academy’s growth phase. Annual meet- ings gave rise to informal national groups of academics - so cohesive in some instances, that they were kindly referred to as ‘maffias’ by our German colleagues, Franz Backer and Hermann Simon, ’ So, for example, in 1981, they founded the Marketing Science Group of Germany. Thus, right from the start, the Academy, whose primary purpose was to encourage international exchanges, caused in- teractions to flourish at the national level.

Now a mature organization, the EAARM

’ A ‘scalloped’ Product Life Cycle (PLC) can be described as a succession of stages of growth and maturity which, owing to constant innovative product improvement, never turns into market saturation.

’ I hope they will forgive me for disclosing these comments made confidentially to me (and some other Belgians).

Intern. J. of Research in Marketing 1 (1984) l-2 North-Holland

IJRM - a new ‘scallop’ in the Academy’s

has recently been renamed the European Marketing Academy (EMAC). I am con- vinced that such a ‘truncation’ of the label - in itself a most welcome simplification - dem- onstrates the self-confidence of European marketing scholars in their own research traditions. There is no further need for an ‘advanced’ epithet!

In their appraisals of the European accom- plishments in our field, Johan Arndt, Lars Mattsson, Philippe Naert, and Berend Wierenga indeed provide support for this view. 3 However, it is hard to judge oneself: assessing one’s own research work may prove quite an uncomfortable exercise, especially for such fair gentlemen as Johan, Lars, Philippe and Berend. Therefore, to get a reliable out- sider’s assessment of the European contribu- tion to Marketing Science, I probably had no other alternative than to look to our Ameri- can colleagues for help.

No doubt, Philip Kotler can be regarded as such a dependable authority - which is why I consulted him (unobtrusively, of course) in order to obtain an unbiased measure for rat- ing the Academy on an international scale. The re-edition of his encyclopaedic book on Marketing decision making (now co-authored by Gary Lilien) offered me a unique oppor- tunity to derive the desired rating within a ‘ before-after’ design. Comparing this brand- new edition to that of 1971, I found that the number of references Gary and Philip make

3 See: J. Arndt (1981) Marketing in Norway, Journal of Marketing 45 (4), 154-157; L.G. Mattsson and P. Naert (1984; to appear), Research in marketing: Accomplishments and challenges - a view from Europe, International Journal of Research in Marketing (invited paper); B. Wierenga (19811, The development of marketing in the Netherlands, Journal of Marketing 45 (4), 150-154.

0167-8116/84/$3.00 0 1984, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)

2 A. Bultez / IJRM - a new ‘scallop’ in the Academy’s PLC

to European contributions had increased. 4 Restricting my statistical investigations to publications of the European members of our Academy, I recorded a rise from five to thirty-nine references.

Let the President believe that such an increment may be evidence of some sort of ‘EMAC effect’. Now, by launching the Inter- national Journal of Research in Marketing, the Academy has availed itself of a permanent vehicle for communication that will further assert and promote its identity.

On behalf of EMAC, I am delighted to

acknowledge the contribution of all the mem- bers of the IJRM Editorial Board and espe- cially of those whose ‘home ports’ are outside of Europe. Susan Douglas and Alvin Silk are entitled to our sincere thanks for their per- sonal involvement in guiding the Academy’s first steps.

Alain Bultez President of EMA C

Vice-president Catholic University, Mom (FUCAM)

4 Compare P. Kotler (1971), Marketing decision making: A model building approach (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston) with P. Kotler and G.L. Lilien (1983), Marketing decision making: A model building approach (New York: Harper and Row). I gratefully acknowledge their uninten- tional refereeing.